MAGIC

Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the house
when they returned to it. He had indeed begun to wonder
if it might not be wise to send some one out to explore
the garden paths. When Colin was brought back to his
room the poor man looked him over seriously.

"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must
not overexert yourself."

"I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well.
Tomorrow I am going out in the morning as well as in
the afternoon."

"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven.
"I am afraid it would not be wise."

"It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Colin
quite seriously. "I am going."

Even Mary had found out that one of Colin's chief peculiarities
was that he did not know in the least what a rude little
brute he was with his way of ordering people about.
He had lived on a sort of desert island all his life
and as he had been the king of it he had made his own
manners and had had no one to compare himself with.
Mary had indeed been rather like him herself and since she
had been at Misselthwaite had gradually discovered that
her own manners had not been of the kind which is usual
or popular. Having made this discovery she naturally
thought it of enough interest to communicate to Colin.
So she sat and looked at him curiously for a few minutes
after Dr. Craven had gone. She wanted to make him ask
her why she was doing it and of course she did.

"What are you looking at me for?" he said.

"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr. Craven."

"So am I," said Colin calmly, but not without an air
of some satisfaction. "He won't get Misselthwaite
at all now I'm not going to die."

We have hundreds more books for your enjoyment. Read them all!

"I'm sorry for him because of that, of course," said Mary,
"but I was thinking just then that it must have been very
horrid to have had to be polite for ten years to a boy
who was always rude. I would never have done it."

"Am I rude?" Colin inquired undisturbedly.

"If you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping
sort of man," said Mary, "he would have slapped you."

"But he daren't," said Colin.

"No, he daren't," answered Mistress Mary, thinking the
thing out quite without prejudice. "Nobody ever dared
to do anything you didn't like--because you were going
to die and things like that. You were such a poor thing."

"But," announced Colin stubbornly, "I am not going
to be a poor thing. I won't let people think I'm one.
I stood on my feet this afternoon."

"It is always having your own way that has made you
so queer," Mary went on, thinking aloud.

Colin turned his head, frowning.

"Am I queer?" he demanded.

"Yes," answered Mary, "very. But you needn't be cross,"
she added impartially, "because so am I queer--and so is
Ben Weatherstaff. But I am not as queer as I was before I
began to like people and before I found the garden."